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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23487958">Saving the Prince</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin'>kaeorin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loki's Lullabies [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort, F/M, Fear, Loki (Marvel) Gets a Hug, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Lullabies, Nightmares</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:00:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,266</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23487958</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki’s past comes to haunt him at night, and you do what you can to comfort him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Loki (Marvel)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loki's Lullabies [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>255</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Saving the Prince</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was rare for Loki to fall asleep before you did. Normally, you got the sense that he laid there awake, listening carefully for your breathing to change, before he even let himself consider falling asleep. Sometimes you wondered if he slept at all. But tonight, perhaps it all caught up with him. You’d been lying there together for less than an hour before you heard how his breathing shifted. It almost sounded like he was snoring. If it were anyone else, you might have filed the sound away to tease him in the morning, but instead, you treasured it. When he disentangled himself from you so he could roll onto his back, you turned so you could look at him. He often looked at you with a softness in his face that he otherwise rarely wore, but now he looked so peaceful, so vulnerable. It made you long to reach out so you could caress his cheek, but you didn’t want to wake him.</p><p>It was hard to know exactly how long you laid there gazing at him. Maybe this was why he didn’t let himself fall asleep first. It was hard to imagine your face ever being so enthralling to him, but he often appeared to see things in you that you couldn’t see yourself. Gradually, though, the tranquility shifted. His brow began to furrow: slowly at first, and then all at once. His lips fell open as his breathing started to come faster. He groaned, and though the sound was quiet, it held so much horror that your stomach twisted. He was dreaming. You propped yourself up on your elbow and reached out to touch his face, hoping you could offer just enough comfort to shift the nightmare without waking him, but he flinched away from your touch and groaned again, louder.</p><p>Even here, hidden away with you, Loki did not often show you the depths of his feelings. He was expressive, of course, and loved to laugh with (and, occasionally, <i>at</i>) you, but you had never seen him like this. In his sleep, he lifted his hands as though to ward something—blows?—off, and then hastily dropped them back to the mattress.</p><p>“Loki.” Your voice was a desperate whisper in the darkness. “It’s only a dream, love. It can’t hurt you.” You reached to comb your fingers through his hair and, though he did not flinch away from you this time, he did let out a whimper. A <i>whimper</i>. Your heart broke and you sat up onto your knees. Though you didn’t really want to touch him again, as it was clear that his mind was finding ways to twist your attempts at comfort into pain and fear, you grasped his shoulder lightly and shook him.</p><p>It was like a bomb went off: as soon as you laid your hand against his skin, he grunted something in what must have been Asgardian. The words meant nothing to you, but the base horror in his voice made you sick. You shook him a little harder, calling his name to try to wake him. He tried to smack your hand away, but either his body knew that you were not the one hurting him or refused to let him put up a real fight against the one who was, because his blows did not hurt in the least. “Hey, wake up!” You sounded a little too shrill, but who was around to hear you? </p><p>His body stiffened, and then went limp beside you as he finally began to wake. When he opened his eyes, he did not look at you and instead sat up with his back to you, hunched over his knees on the edge of the bed. You gave him his privacy for a few moments. Silvery moonlight traced the faintest hints of scarring along his back: scars you’d seen but never had the courage to question. When you couldn’t take it any longer, you reached out to touch him—gently at first, so you wouldn’t startle him. He flinched but did not pull away. Finally, you pressed yourself against his back and slipped your arms around his neck to hold him close to you, hoping the warmth of your body could offer some kind of comfort.</p><p>There was a lot that you didn’t know about Loki. There was a lot that he could easily have been dreaming about. Without knowing exactly what he’d been seeing, it was hard to know exactly what to say to him. You didn’t want to presume or offer some generic words that may or may not have actually been true, but you said what felt right. “You’re safe now,” you whispered. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. No one can hurt you here. I won’t hurt you.”</p><p>You repeated those words for some time, holding him tightly in hopes of offering some kind of comfort. When he reached to close his fingers around your wrists, you realized that his hands were trembling. God, what had happened to him? You hugged him tighter for a moment and pressed your face against the side of his neck.</p><p>After a while—it was hard to know how long, exactly—he released you and tapped your arm. Without speaking, you pulled away from him so he could turn to face you again. He didn’t speak. You reached out to take his hand in yours so you could kiss his knuckles. “If you want to talk, I can listen,” you murmured against his skin. “After everything you’ve done for me, I’d be honored.” You knew him well enough to suspect that he’d never share those horrors because of his own need, but if you could make him see that you wanted to listen, he might. </p><p>With his free hand, he reached out to cup your chin, to bring your eyes to his. “Not here,” he finally said in a low voice. “Those things have no place here in this bed. Perhaps another time.”</p><p>He sounded truthful. You nodded gently just before he leaned in to press a tender kiss to your lips. When he broke it, he rested his forehead against yours and closed his eyes. You sent him fierce thoughts of peace and comfort, hoping that perhaps he could feel them coming from you. “Will you stay?” you asked quietly, but kept your eyes closed so you could not read his answer in his face. “Will you lie back down with me?” It would be hard to blame him if he decided to get up and read in the living room for the rest of the night, but the loneliness of that pained you. “Please?”</p><p>He took several long moments—thinking about your request, you figured—and finally pulled back far enough to kiss your forehead. Though you braced yourself for his refusal, you felt him nod. Without a word, you laid back down, stretching out on your back and pulling him down beside you. He followed your lead and curled himself against the side of your body with his head resting on your shoulder. This was a rather uncommon position for you, but it let you wrap your arm around his back and kiss the top of his head. Remembering all the nights that you had fallen asleep on him like this, your brain scrambled for something you could say to try to soothe him back to sleep. He was so good at that. Finally, you tightened your arm around him.</p><p>“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful prince who was cursed to see himself as a monster...”</p>
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